Dead Men's Tales

I like reading about dead men. Biographies, that is. Specifically, Christian biographies. They give me a perspective about life and how to focus on what really counts, what really matters.

When I was in Graduate School in Memphis 25 years ago, a friend at church told me of a book that transformed his life -- Shadow of the Almighty by Elisabeth Elliott. I was deeply moved by reading of the brief and yet highly influential life of Jim Elliott -- student at Wheaton College, wholly sold out to Jesus, and an eventual martyr while sharing the gospel with the Auca Indians in Ecuador.

Years later Randy Becton got me to read the story of J.B. Phillips, who did produced one of the first modern translations of the New Testament. He was somewhat like the Eugene Peterson of England. And yet the man suffered terribly with bouts of depression.

I was also fascinated by reading the book released in the mid-90's, Abandoned to God. It was the story of Oswald Chambers, who also died rather young (age 41). I was particularly captivated by the dark night of the soul that he went through. Out of his brokenness came an encounter with the Holy Spirit and thus a profound relationship with Jesus Christ. He never wrote a book, and yet in God's sweet providence was married to a woman who knew short hand. She took notes of the many devotional talks he gave. Many of these talks were given at a YMCA camp where he was stationed in Egypt. After losing her husband at age 41, Bitty Chambers decided to put his devotional talks in book form -- and his classic My Utmost for His Highest has been one of the most influential books in the last century.

Yesterday I picked up from ACU a book that I began to work through at lunch and later in the evening. It is an 800 + biography on a man who has had an enormous impact on my faith -- Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was a Welshman born in the early part of the 20^th Century. Raised in a church that had sprung from a major revival in Wales, Lloyd-Jones eventually trained for medicine. He graduated early from medical school and quickly ascended to a position of esteem as a clinician at a major teaching hospital in London. But as one of his biographers said, something happened:

Slowly, reading for himself, his mind was gripped by the Christian gospel, its compelling power and its balanced logic, like the majestic self-supporting arches of a great cathedral. He had no dramatic crisis of conversion, but there came a point when he had committed himself entirely to the Christian gospel. After that, as he sat in the consulting room, listening to the symptoms of those who came to see him, he realised that what so many of his patients needed was not ordinary medicine, but the gospel he had discovered for himself. He could deal with the symptoms, but the worry, the tension, the obsessions could only be dealt with by the power of Christian conversion. Increasingly he felt that the best way to use his life and talents was to preach that gospel.1

Dr. Jones gave up his medical practice and followed the call of God to preach the gospel. He preached for eleven years in Wales, where his powerful exposition of God’s word led many people to Christ. In 1938 Lloyd-Jones received a call to serve at the Westminster Chapel in London where he preached for 30 years. In 1968, he retired from the pulpit and spent the last thirteen years of his life transcribing his sermons into books and mentoring other ministers.

I recall the first time his ministry had a profound impact on me. A co-worker loaned me a copy of Lloyd-Jones’ little book on the Psalms called Enjoying the Presence of God. In the first few minutes of reading this book, my soul was deeply touched by his words. I remember well one evening that I read in this book his reflections on Psalm 81:10

I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

The Doctor urged me to open my heart more to the presence of the living God. It must have looked odd, but as I lay there in my bed, falling to sleep, I stretched my hands out to God, opened my mouth and breathed this silent prayer: “Lord, fill me. Fill me, I pray.” I want more than to just read your words. I want to experience You.”

A few months later I was at a ministry conference and came across a $5.00 used copy of another book by Dr. Jones, Spiritual Depression. This title first struck me as, well, depressing. And yet as I read his messages I realized that God had given this man a gift of applying His word to the emotional battles that even Christ-followers face.

I have returned to this book many times whenever I feel myself slipping into spiritual valleys.

A few years ago I heard some audiotapes of his sermons. The messages are riveting, all focused upon the gospel and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I’ve once asked myself, “Why has this man’s lessons had such a great impact on me?” Here are the reasons I’ve come to:

· He keeps pointing me to Christ and to place my soul in the hands of my Savior.

· He calls me to recognize that my salvation comes through grace alone, by faith alone and through Christ alone. Any attempt at human effort to be saved or stay saved will fail.

· He’s helped me get a bigger picture of the majesty and holiness of God, and how desperately I need the blood of Christ and His empowerment in my life.

When I struggle with my failures, recognize how I fall short of God’s standards, and my assurance of salvation wavers, the messages of Lloyd-Jones call me back to the Lord. Once more I fix my eyes on Jesus. He helps me reject anything – any church, teaching, preacher or emotion – that will get between me and Christ and His sacrifice for me.

Like all of us, Lloyd-Jones was an imperfect person. And yet I thank God for “The Doctor,” as his friends called him. He helps me see Jesus, the Savior of my soul, the Great Shepherd of this sheep. And he reminds me of the One in whom I’m to glory every day. As he says:

I will glory only in that Blessed Person Himself by whom this great thing has been done, with whom I died, with whom I have been buried, with whom I am dead to sin and alive unto God, with whom I have risen, with whom I am seated in the heavenly places, by whom and by whom alone the world is crucified unto me and I am crucified unto the world. Anything that wants to come into the centre instead of Him, anything that wants to add itself on to Him, I shall reject….Let us rejoice in Him in all His fullness and in Him alone.2

WHAT CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHIES HAVE IMPACTED YOUR FAITH?

Jim

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1 Sir FredCatherwood, Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: His Life and Ministry

2 D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression – Its Causes and Its Cure (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1965), p. 189.